Tangle
by Mad Server
Summary: Dean's got a cold and a cracked rib. Sam makes him soup.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Tangle  
Author: Mad Server  
Rating: T  
Characters: Dean, Sam  
Word Count: 1700  
Summary: Dean's got a cold and a cracked rib. Sam makes him soup.  
A/N: This is more or less an expansion on a drabble I posted back in July, "Anti-Dependent." Big thank you to followthesp1der for a thorough, generous and thought-provoking beta job, and to NativeStar for the cyberspace-thwarted beta that almost was; thanks too to Enkidu07 for the cheering on, and to the people who liked "Anti-Dependent" and said, "Make this longer." Bit of language in this one so be ready for it.  
Disclaimer: I don't own these guys.

* * *

It would be funny if it would just let up a little. Or if the end was in sight. Or if Dean wasn't making those sounds in between -- the sick strangled pain sounds, which he can't keep a lid on as hard as he seems to be trying. Or if he would fucking _say_ something. But he's been quiet the last few minutes, all his bad jokes, funny faces and drama queen complaints abandoned, and now there's just the groaning, and the wheezing.

And the sneezing, which is the whole problem to begin with. A cracked rib's got Dean bitchy and worn out from sleeping sitting up the last two weeks, and from probably continual pain since he insists on Keeping His Edge and thus has been mostly refusing painkillers. If Sam knows him at _all_, it's also eating away at Dean that he can't defend either of the Amazing Fighting Winchester Brothers the way he wants to should they get in a tussle. Throw in a chestful of mucus and a headful to match, courtesy of the Mystery Virus from Hell -- coughing and sneezing that tug at Dean's cracked rib hard enough he's actually gone cross-eyed a couple times -- and it's just, not cool anymore.

There have been forerunners for days, but the cold-flu-whatever has only come on in full force tonight, since they got back to the motel after interviewing the family who live in the haunted house they're here about. Sam's pumped Dean full of meds already, pills that claim to tamp down cold symptoms plus their old friend Mr. Codeine. He is in fact a little alarmed at the readiness with which his brother accepted the drugs, which they both know are going to space him out plenty. If they ever kick in, that is. Clearly they still haven't, because here's Dean, pasty and pinched-looking, propped against the headboard on a jumble-stack of pillows, breath rattling with congestion, nose already a tired red. His eyes are shut, forehead creased and beaded with sweat, one hand resting protectively, uselessly, over the rib in question. He coughs once, lightly, pain tugging his eyebrows down, curling his fingers, and for Sam, it tips the scales.

"Hey, listen," Sam says, perched on the other bed, not entirely sure what he's about to say. "Maybe you should eat something. Make the pills kick in faster."

Dean snuffles, opens bloodshot eyes and peers at Sam.

"I'm gonna make you something," Sam goes on when Dean doesn't answer, talking to fill the void. "Soup?"

Dean wipes his eyes, gets a look of intense concentration, and then turns away and sneezes into his palm. He stays perfectly still for a few seconds afterwards, not even letting out a whimper this time, and Sam wonders what it cost him. Then he wipes his palm on the bedspread and sniffles tiredly, turning back to Sam with a grey face.

"No offense," he says thickly, "but I really don't wanna hurl right now."

"Chicken soup," Sam repeats, suddenly finding himself within spitting distance of desperation. "You won't hurl. Come on, man, I can't watch this. You're like a basket of drowning kittens over there, or one of those charity ads about leprosy."

Dean's jaw clenches, his chin jutting out just a little. "I am _not_ kittens," he asserts, his voice gravelly and congested. Something seems to occur to him, wheels turning behind dark-ringed eyes, and he points a finger skyward. "Except _maybe_ if they're tiger kittens." His eyes go squinty and he sucks in an urgent breath, then twists away and sneezes juicily into his elbow, following it up with a series of rough coughs. Sam can see sweat on the back of his neck.

"I'm making soup," Sam says, standing up.

Dean just groans into the crook of his arm.

"So what do you make of Anne?" Sam asks as makes his way into the kitchen. Now that he's got Dean talking again, he's not willing to go back to that strained silence; he wants Dean here, engaged, focused on something other than snot and pain. "You think she was murdered?" He rips open a package of instant soup mix, eyeballing Dean; watches him rub a hand over his forehead, pluck three kleenexes out of the box and layer them together and slowly, cautiously, blow his nose. "Or do you think she's really just pissed about not having been buried in consecrated ground?"

"She's pissed. That's all that matters. She's pissed, she's gotta go." Dean drags a hand over his scalp, slowly, like his head hurts. Then he frowns, breath hitching again, face screwing up, and sneezes into his handful of kleenex, his whole body rocking forward. He hisses, eyebrows shooting up, and stifles a moan.

Sam's got the soup mix and some water in a mug in the microwave and he's hovering beside it, waiting for it to boil. He winces in sympathy, presses on with his line of distracting questions.

"But aren't you curious? Or here's a better question: why _now?_ You've been dead for a hundred and fifty-four years, hanging out in your old house pretty much the entire time, stirring things up once in awhile but never getting violent. Then one day you decide to up and butcher the family dog? I think if it was vengeance she was after, she'd have been hurting people years ago. And I think being murdered would have made Anne a vengeful spirit. If you ask me, she wasn't murdered. I think being buried outside of consecrated ground -- or maybe just being pissed about it -- she just, hasn't been able to get into the afterlife the way she was supposed to. And I'm thinking it's just taken her until now to get lonely for her friends in the next world, or to get tired of hanging out here."

"Speaking of which," Dean rasps, squinting blearily across the room at Sam, "shouldn't we be doing something about that? Like, now?"

"Family's out of the house," Sam says, his eyes roving over Dean's splotchy face, mildly unsettled that Dean doesn't remember. On the other hand, if Dean had been contending with the beginnings of _this_ when they'd discussed it, it's really no wonder he hasn't retained everything. "Nobody's on the line tonight. Figure I'll hike out tomorrow and consecrate the spot where they think she's buried."

"We," Dean corrects. After a couple of false starts, he sneezes into that same damp ball of kleenex, exhaling with a frustrated growl. He sniffles and wipes his stuffy nose with the soggy tissues, then drops the wad into the trash, looking teary-eyed and faintly disgusted.

Sam's still rolling his eyes at his brother's outdated Protect Sammy drive when the microwave finally dings. He brings the steaming mug over and puts it down on the bedside table, where Dean eyes it warily, like it's a one night stand who's tracked him down and is asking for child support.

"It'll make you hurt less," Sam maintains.

A crackling cough, hand fisting at his ribcage, and a quick, desperate glance at the ceiling, and then Dean's nodding, bright-eyed, and motioning for the soup. Sam passes it over and stays close, ready to grab it if it looks like Dean's going to have another mucus attack and spill it everywhere.

"Pretty reasonable, really," Dean comments after a few mercifully uneventful sips. "For a ghost. Shafted by a bunch of fuckin' bigots. _We're sorry, you're too aboriginal for our graveyard_." He sniffles, shakes his head. "Patient. She shouldn'ta gone after the dog, but considering how long she's been waiting around, it coulda been a lot worse. She coulda cut 'em all up. Torched 'em. Whatever she wanted. An' it's good she did _something_, 'cause otherwise we wouldn'ta known to come. Maybe this one hasn't gone crazy, Sam. Or gone too crazy at least. Anyway, I'm glad we're gonna send her off. Out of all of 'em, you know, all the ones we send packing, maybe she deserves it the most. Hell, maybe she'll even appreciate it."

The words are flowing too freely, and there's a glimmer in Dean's eyes that Sam doesn't like. He takes the pillow off his own bed, moves to put it behind Dean's shoulders, and uses the opportunity to surreptitiously gage the heat coming off Dean's head. No question he's running a fever, but Sam breathes a little easier when he senses it isn't scary-high: the drugs must just be kicking in. "Maybe she will," he agrees.

A few more sips of soup and Dean's eyelids start drooping; experimental snuffles and his sinuses seem to be coming clearer. The creases blow off his forehead and he doesn't look like he's in pain anymore.

"Here," Sam says, gently taking back the mug. Warm, dopey eyes blink up at him, and the hand guarding Dean's ribcage slides down to his lap.

"Huh," says Dean. "Soup worked."

"Let's hear it for soup," says Sam.

"You're not goin' alone," Dean murmurs, his eyes slipping shut. "Dangerous."

Sam's a little taken aback. "I'm not going anywhere tonight," he says carefully.

"Tomorrow," Dean slurs. "To Anne. We're going together. Me an' you. Going away party." He drags his eyes open, bloodshot; pins Sam with a look, and Sam can't lie.

"You do realize it's a hike," Sam says. "And that you're like, sick and broken."

"Fuck you," Dean smiles.

Sam shakes his head, half-smiling back in spite of his concurrent urge to choke his rude, overprotective brother. "Fine. You're invited." Shape Dean's in, Sam figures he probably won't even remember this tomorrow.

After that, Dean's out like a light. Sam strips the comforter off his own bed and drapes it carefully over him, then presses the backs of his fingers briefly against Dean's temple. Satisfied, Sam blows out a deep breath, rolls his shoulders. He grabs his cell phone, throws on his jacket, and steps out into the crisp late summer night to call Bobby for his thoughts on consecration spells.

* * *

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Whoa. That took longer than expected. *iz sheepish* Big thank yous to my beta i-speak-tongue for saving the ending yet again, to Spidey for looking things over, to Wicked Rebel and sidjack for the nudges, and to Enkidu07 for becoming a PhD and making me feel classy and academic by association. Thanks too to SciFiRN for answering a billionty questions about rib injuries. Speaking of which, remember how I said Dean's rib was cracked? Pretend I said "broken." FYI, this ghost (minus the violence) is based on the ghost that supposedly haunts my family's cottage._

* * *

Cicadas, the smell of hay, a blindingly blue sky. A treeline. And just in past it, a couple of really big, squarish rocks.

Sam checks his compass and nods. "They figure that's part of the old house," he says, pointing.

Flushed and panting, his grey T-shirt gone damp under the arms, Dean braces his ribcage with both hands and sneezes twice.

"Great," he chokes out, snuffling and wiping his nose on the edge of his hand. The hike in was only forty minutes, and he's already gone through his entire supply of kleenex. "So, now what?"

"Now we hope Anne's open-minded," Sam says, shrugging off his backpack and dropping it onto the dirt path, "'cause it would normally be a bishop doing this."

Dean groans, rubs his inflamed nose. "You better not have dragged me out here for nothing."

"Dragged you out here?" Sam stops unbuckling his bag to shoot Dean an incredulous look. "I believe your exact words were, 'Sammy, don't leave me.'"

"I was high." Dean coughs drily into his fist, his other hand pressing his torso. He grunts afterwards, new sweat shining on his flushed face, and wraps both arms around his midsection.

Sam frowns. "You shoulda doped up this morning, too." He pulls something out of the bag. "I brought some, you know. It's not too late."

Dean looks at the flu meds like they're a miraculous last sausage hidden away at the back of the grill at a barbecue that's supposed to be sold out. He drags a hand across his forehead, then sniffles and shrugs. "You know that'll put me off my game."

Sam blinks. "'Cause you're so on your game right now."

"Yeah, well, no thanks." An awkward pause. Dean snorts back some snot, makes a face. "You, uh, got any kleenex in there?"

He just manages to catch the box that comes sailing at his head.

"I love you." He tears it open, fishes one out and blows his nose until the tissue is wet and distended. Sam doesn't comment, occupied with the contents of his bag.

"OK," Sam says, straightening up as Dean chucks kleenex number three into the long, dry grass. Sam has a feather in his hand, and a little bottle. "All you have to do is hang out, and send Anne good vibes. I'm gonna go do my thing."

"Your thing?" The tissue box is cornflower blue, dangling by Dean's hip. He sounds weary, defensive. "You need cover?" But he's coughing even as he asks, involuntary tears starting to leak down his face.

"We're here to give her what she wants. I doubt she's gonna make any trouble." Sam's eyes scan the ground and he spots a fallen log a few metres off, in the cool shade of the treeline. "Take a load off," he says, nodding toward it. He watches Dean turn to look at the log, hesitate, and then rub the back of his neck, press a hand against his nose like he's trying to ward off a sneeze.

"Ugh," Dean says, blowing out a breath. "Just don't do anything stupid, OK?" The sneeze catches up with him as he sits down, and brings a couple more with it, leaving Dean hissing, red-faced and groping for tissues. Sam watches for a second, then heads into the forest.

* * *

An eagle feather, from Native American burial customs. He uses it to carve a cross into the ground in each corner of the area he wants to consecrate. "I pray for those I love but no longer see," Sam recites, unscrewing the cap off the lavender oil. "Grant them peace, let perpetual light shine upon them, and in your loving wisdom, almighty God, please, take them." The lavender is meant to go directly onto the corpse, another Native tradition, but Sam figures this is better than nothing. He sprinkles some on the ground, into the sign of the cross.

"I pray for Anne," Sam says at the final corner. "Please. Take her. Let her rest. Give your blessing to this place, to sanctify it and keep it holy. I set it apart from all profane use to be a resting place for the remains of those who have departed. For Anne. Okay?"

He's not sure what he's waiting for, a breeze or an apparition or a deep-down tug of peace, but there's nothing. Sam hears a series of spluttering sneezes and shrugs, turns to find Dean.

* * *

"You gotta watch out for people, Sam."

"Huh?"

The path's narrow here, surrounded by pine. There are ferns on the ground, and wild strawberries.

"People." Dean sniffles, rubs his temple with the heel of his hand. "Lotta jerks out there. Bigots."

"Like the people who buried Anne," Sam hazards. He edges into the greenery, lets Dean catch up.

"Exactly." Dean reaches Sam and stops moving. His cheeks are glowing, and he's breathing hard. "Somebody's different, they're a target."

It has the tone of a lecture. Sam sighs tolerantly, wonders when Dean will figure out he's not eight anymore.

"Your psychic stuff, Sam. It makes you a target." Dean's gaze is fevered, unwavering. "Don't you forget it."

Sam's face heats up. He grinds his teeth, then manages, "Yeah, OK."

Dean watches him for another beat, then shakes his head, starts walking again. "I worry about you, kid."

Sam's still digesting this when Dean stumbles, then grunts and goes rigid, half bent over, both arms wound around his torso.

"Dean?" Sam hurries forward, sees his face has drained white.

Dean makes a vaguely affirmative sound, then straightens up in delicate increments. Sam grabs an elbow and waits for the color to come back.

"Damnit," Dean breathes. His eyebrows shoot up and he sneezes, pitches forward a lurching half-step. Sam goes for the second elbow and holds on tight.

* * *

Later, in the hot car, Dean dry-swallows Sam's pills and fast-forwards the tape, a determined frown on his face, like he's looking for a certain song.

"Some people are all right," Sam ventures.

Dean snuffles, shivers, presses play. "Not that many, Sam."

"Maybe not." A bug pings off the windshield. "But there's good people, man. Anne's fine, right? Why can't we be fine too?"

* * *

end


End file.
